


tired magnolia

by Beyond_the_Grace



Series: kindness blooms [13]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Good Petunia Evans Dursley, Self-Reflection, Severus Snape Bashing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-16 23:02:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29583462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beyond_the_Grace/pseuds/Beyond_the_Grace
Summary: petunia reflects on her childhood and hopes for the future
Relationships: Petunia Evans Dursley & Harry Potter, Petunia Evans Dursley & Lily Evans Potter, Regulus Black/Petunia Evans Dursley
Series: kindness blooms [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1773583
Comments: 1
Kudos: 48





	tired magnolia

mrs evans had always said that lily had not cried as a baby, she had been good as gold but petunia wondered about herself. her mother occasionally got half way through a story about petunia only to realise it was in fact a tale about lily - she kept telling it of course because who didn't want to hear about darling little lily. this is not to say she was a bad mother, just a mother with a single point of pride and another child. she loved both of her children she only wished her dear pet could smile more, could have been nicer as a child, wasn't so serious. petunia got it. lily was an angel, so sweet and precious with their fathers red hair and mother's bright eyes. she was a kind child who loved having her big sister to follow after. the two girls were inseparable even when lily was being mean or petunia grumpy. petunia looked back on the early years of their childhood fondly, days in the sweet summer heat with the rose colour of time making things sparkle in their beauty.

till that strange boy ruined it.

he came around and whispers secrets of magic in her sister's ear. he told her all about how special she was and how her older sister wasn't. lily had always had a weakness for people telling her how good she was. lily was a girl who needed praise like air, the rarity of their father's smiles installing some insatiable hunger in them both. the boy was cruel and no matter how much he insulted petunia it was never enough, lily always said she was the one being rude. the boy had been awful and had taken her sister from her.

when lily left it was a relief. she had begged to go away as well, at first to the same school as her sister because her mum had always told her that she should protect lily but then also to any other school. home had become a tomb for her. she felt herself rotting in cokeworth, could feel her skin decay with every family meal discussing lily's latest letter or being dragged to church on sunday where the priest only ever enquired after her sister. she felt like her parents had built up their whole lives around her sister where everyone only cared for lily but lily didn't write her still. she was an after note in everyone's lives and she was tired. petunia began to think she wasn't even there anymore. she was stuck rotting in a town that did not care for her at all. every perfect grade went unnoticed as did every f, the acceptance and rejection letters from grammar schools were left unopened because who would even care? lily had magic and so petunia did not matter.

lily came home for the summer with pockets full of frog spawn and scorn. she pushed them all away in favour of this better world she had found and petunia wanted to scream. she tried to ignore her mother's crying that night as lily's favourite dinner sat in the bin, rejected in favour of hanging out with that strange boy. she ignored the weight in her chest as her sister sat so prettily in church, still reciting the prayer in perfect order as if she had never left. petunia did not need to wonder why her family were several hours late home but she waited in her room regardless. no one cared when she left the house or didn't return at all but she told her mum she was going anyway, her mum only asked if she'd seen lily.

"your daughter is so pretty." her mother was told often when they went out for meals and there was never a question about which daughter was meant by that.

lily was first. lily was always first between the two girls, even though petunia was born first. lily was her mother's first love. her father's apathy became a relief, her father loved them both but he was a man of tradition. lily and petunia only saw him at dinner and at church but in this they were at least equal. 

after years had passed and her father had too petunia only remembered her father as a man in an armchair with a cigar and a whiskey. there is no room for his generation, she'd often think, not in these modern homes. but in the home there never was. hindsight gave her a lot of ideas about how her family had been when she was growing up, with her own family and job and life she could not see the logic her mother had followed but the role of her father was a standard her own husband had broken.

when she now served customers at the shop mothers still complained about absent husband but it was literal now. men no longer sat at home with a smoke but women remembered their fathers who had, those whose fathers were still around would tell her how sad these men were. their fathers may have been absent but more than this they were unhappy in their own absence. still with all the people she met every day she could not find a explanation for her mother. 

petunia's resentments towards lily had been dulled since she met regulus and they had evaporated completely when she had been placed as guardian of her child. when she first held her own she knew fully it had never been her or lily at fault for their separation. it had always been their mother and that strange boy. their mother, who had loved them but who had not known how to love in equal amounts, who petunia could never understand especially not after holding iris for the first time. the strange boy who petunia used as a basis for what not to do for the rest of her life because at sixteen she'd heard her sister crying at night after than boy had said about awful things to her. 

petunia had had a melancholy childhood. she knew that now and she vowed to make sure neither harry nor iris never felt that way. she swore they'd feel equally loved and as far as she could see they did but she saw the way the darkness was creeping into her nephew's life and that of his friends. regulus had told her little but he would grow just a little more tense after reading the papers and it felt like every year harry came home with a little less innocence.

petunia may not hate magic any more but she could see the damage the world had done to the people she loved. for now she would hold her family close and hope that that was enough.

**Author's Note:**

> the next will be the fourth year


End file.
